‘Saturday Night Live’ ratings: J.K. Simmons show down slightly from Blake Shelton’s

We’ll be honest here when we say that going into this particular episode of “Saturday Night Live,” we had a sinking suspicion that the numbers were going to be a little bit lower than the one hosted by Blake Shelton. It should not be that hard to figure out the reason why. Blake is one of the biggest stars on country music; while J.K. Simmons may have “Whiplash,” it would be a lie to say that he is on that same level of fame.

With that being said, we feel like NBC and Simmons should ultimately be pretty happy with the performance here. After all, it feels a lot like Simmons performed much better than we thought he would. The show scored a 2.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which was down just a tenth from the show the week before. This may be another piece of evidence that perhaps we do have a tendency to overrate the impact that the choice of a given host has on an individual program.

Now, the NBC series is going to take a little bit of time to prepare for what is going to be one of its biggest broadcasts ever in the 40th anniversary special. This is going to be the most-anticipated episode quite possibly in a decade, since you’ve got Eddie Murphy and other alumni returning in grand fashion. It will be airing on a Sunday night, so you do have to remember here that it will be difficult to compare this to other recent episodes of the show.

Did you enjoy this particular edition of the show? Share with a comment, and head over here to read our full review of the broadcast. Also, you can sign up now for some more news on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)